WHEN it comes to computers and the internet, I tend to rely on my children to guide me through problems. But the time is rapidly approaching when the brood will all have flown and my wife and I will have to fend for ourselves. So, when our internet connection stopped working last week, I decided to be brave and try to sort it out myself.

I found the number for Sky, dialled it on the home phone, and launched into one of the most stressful ordeals I’ve had since I got lost in a dense forest as a child.

It started quite calmly when the Sky man assured me that he was there to help, and took me through some security checks.

He then asked me to describe the problem and I explained that the internet connection had stopped working a few days earlier and hadn’t come back.

I was asked to go to my computer (an iPad) and he led me through various steps aimed at checking the settings.

Apparently satisfied that the settings were in order, he turned his attention to the router.

“Can you tell me what lights are on?” he asked.

“Three orange ones,” I replied. As I did so, the third orange light turned to green.

“The third light’s gone to green...no, hang on, it’s gone off altogether,” I told him.

“So what colour is it now?” he asked.

“Back to orange – but it’s flickering...now green... now nothing,” I explained, struggling to keep up.

Like I said, I’m no expert, but I suspected there was something wrong with the router.

“I think there might be something wrong with your router,” he suggested.

With my router continuing to audition for a place at the Blackpool illuminations, the Sky man decided we should “try another tactic”.

He gave me a web address to type into my iPad and we clicked on various links that appeared to lead nowhere. To cut a very long story short, we tried various new “tactics”

until more than an hour had passed and I had a crick in my neck from wedging the phone between my ear and shoulder while typing into the iPad.

I think he could tell I was getting exasperated, but he said we should “go up one last avenue”.

“Can you check your land-line connection and tell me if there is a small white box attached to the wall?” he asked.

I got down on my knees, with the phone still wedged between my ear and shoulder, and saw that indeed there was a small white box – with two small sockets, one marked “Phone” and one marked “Modem”.

“That’s good,” said the Sky man, enthusiastically. “Are there wires going into it?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Stay with me Mr Barron, stay with me, we’re nearly there.”

By now, the Sky man had taken on the air of a aviation expert talking down a novice pilot in a mid-air emergency. “Okay, Mr Barron, what I want you to do is disconnect the white box from the wall. Can you do that for me?”

With all the concentration of a bomb disposal expert defusing a mine, I slowly pulled out the box – and the phone went dead. I’d cut myself off.

Close to tears, I reconnected the phone, called Sky back, got someone new, was told I’d have to go through the security checks again, considered using my iPad as a frisbee, but instead closed my eyes and went: “Aaaaaaaaaaaargh!.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

AT a meeting of Billingham Centre Ladies Club, Margaret Jack told of the time she was a little girl living with her Granny and Grandad in a house on top of a cliff in Scotland.

Margaret was told by her Granny to run up to the farm cottages to ask her Auntie Bean to borrow some cochineal food colouring. She came back with a crochet needle.

...and at a meeting of Hermitage Townswomen’s Guild in Chester-le- Street, Jennifer Buxton remembered the time her little girl Johanne, four, was learning about history.

She turned to Jennifer and said: “What was it like living under the Romans, Mam?”

LOVEBOAT UPDATE

THANK you to those who have been asking how my fitness and weight-loss programme is going ahead of our silver wedding anniversary cruise in June. With a month to go until we sail from Venice, I am now 12st 10lb, having been 14st 11lb at Christmas.

To be frank, I am now starting to worry that I might be making myself too irresistible.